Last Stop
by Alan Spencer
Summary: Kenny and Clementine, on their way to Wellington.


**Last Stop**

Clementine walked across the snow, with slow but steady steps, holding AJ under her left arm and a gun on her right. Right in front of her was Kenny. They had already been walking for several days towards Wellington. There was still not trace of it, of course. The only thing there was empty buildings, Walkers and that deep chill.

Why was she in this situation? It seemed like so much time had passed that sometimes she nearly believed that it had been nothing but a distant nightmare, but no. It was not. The conflict at the Rest Stop. Once again, people fighting to kill each other, like humanity didn't have enough enemies already. Only this time they had been people she had trusted. She had done all that she could to stop them, but it had been fruitless. And things had come to their natural end. Kenny stabbing through Jane's chest with a piece of wood, trying to kill her. And, then, she had picked up the gun.

She thought she had to shoot him. She thought that he was not him anymore, that he had not been him for a long time, so she didn't to doubt. But she didn't. Couldn't. And why? Killing somebody she didn't know was simple. She only had to remember the encounter of a year and several months ago in that dingy bathroom, the thief, that woman shooting and killing Omid. With that memory burning on her mind, it was very easy, because every stranger was just a danger of that happening to her too. No matter how they looked. But killing somebody you knew was another story. That was why she hadn't pulled the trigger.

Not out of love, but fear. She couldn't have withstood to kill a person she knew so well. Her numbed mind finally allowed her to admit than that was the simple truth. She looked at the baby she had under her arm. She wondered what would happen if they would survive, if she could watch him grow up, and what she would do when the time came. How would she tell him that she had been unable to save his father and she had been the one to put at end to his mother. She smiled bitterly.

She still remembered being there, in the snow, with her hands shaking as she looked at Jane's corpse with the piece of wood pushed through her body. Telling herself that she had done nothing wrong, that she didn't have to felt guilty. That she simply hadn't wanted to ill him. And discovering AJ alive, in that car, finally gave her a motive to hold on to. Jane was a manipulator, a liar. She did something as cruel as that without doubting, simply because she believed Kenny to be poison. He had simply done what was just.

Except that, she was not sure Jane was mistaken.

They took shelter in an abandoned building. It was not much, but it had to do the trick. Wellington shouldn't be too far. That was what remained, the last strand of hope. They rested together under a pile of sheets, to share the body heat. Still, she was a little bit cold.

They were not going to live long enough to reach Wellington.

Clementine put away that uncomfortable thought from her mind, and sunk into a deep dream to recover her strength.

* * *

She saw a recurring dream. Saw memories that she couldn't reach anymore.

Lee… Why did he fight, and why did he keep on running? It was true that he wanted to survive, but the answer was not so simple. He had gone through horrible things that would have broke things weaker that him, and still he had keep on fighting. Trying to fight Larry despite the risks, refusing to kill the St. John's brothers, not taking the food from the car even after the group took it with them. He had not been a normal person. In his lowest moments, he still had the strength to think about others. In what was right, and what was wrong.

He was not stupid. He understood about limits. He understood even though it hurt that a miracle was something too big for humans. Life was only possible through sacrifices, in the world from before and in the current world. Yes, he understood that too well. But he didn't want to sacrifice anything, so he chose himself as a sacrifice. Over and over again. That man had betrayed himself once, before all of this, and he didn't want to do so again. That was all there was to it.

Of course, he had surely see coming the end that was waiting for him. There was no way for somebody who only sacrificed himself too last long. A miracle was something too big for humans… so, of course, his end came. And still. Having been bitten, without an arm, aware that there was something worse that dead waiting for him, he had thought of her. Not himself. He didn't cry, didn't scream, didn't beg for more time. His lasts words were to guide her. He even try for her to leave him there, to his fate, so that she wouldn't have to do something like that. He held on to his ideals until the end and died without being compensated for anything.

But… maybe having been capable of maintaining that way of life until the end, without seeing himself twisted by the current world, was all the compensation he needed.

* * *

She woke up. She was aware that she was crying, but she just let the tears fall. It had been too long ago since she couldn't even cry. In a way, those tears were proof that she was still human. Despite all the sacrifices that she had made.

She stood up. AJ was still asleep. Better. If he started crying, all the Walkers that could heard him would go for them. She had learned to calm him down quickly, but that didn't meant it was not a chore. They left the building and headed once more towards Wellington.

Why did she fight, and why did she keep on running? She couldn't even understand herself. She had tried to keep firm, honour his memory by being as strong as him, but time and time again, her dream had been struck against the hard reality. A miracle was something too big for humans. It was impossible for a child like her to survive in this world without sacrificing things like what was right, and what was not.

Ah, shit. They didn't even know where Wellington was exactly. Or if it even existed. It seemed too convenient to be true. The only thing that seemed real was that deep chill. Why was she following a madness whose most probable end was dead? She didn't know that either.

A sound. She turned towards the sun with her gun at the ready, but she was too late. A Walker without legs crawled out of the woods, and took Kenny by surprise. It bit him in one leg. Kenny bit her tongue to not scream, and hit the Walker in the head with the pistol. The impact managed to bring it down to the ground. Kenny brought his foot down on its head hard, over and over again with his foot, until the creature stopped moving.

It stumbled forward, put his back against the wall and let himself fall. He brought his hands to his head. There was nothing to do for him anymore. Cutting the bitten extremity had worked for Reggie, but Kenny had been bitten in one leg. To begin with she didn't have nothing to cut his leg off with, but even if she had it, even if cutting off his leg worked, he would be nothing but a weight that would drag them both down to their deads. She approached him, and keeled in front of him.

"Shit, shit, shit… at a time like this..." Kenny muttered. He raised his head, and fixed his eye on her. "Clem… I'm sorry. I..."

Again. It was happening again. She could almost see Lee against the wall, breathing with difficulty. Pale as a corpse.

"I made… lots of mistakes. And things… I paid the price, and still I keep on living. Without a reason, without anything. Trying to hold on to what I could. Because… I was afraid to die, and I didn't want to admit I had nothing to live for. I am still afraid to die." he laughed. "How could I not? But at least… at least now… now its because I didn't do what I should have done. What I promised. I only wanted… to do something good again. I am sick and tired of doing the wrong things. Sacrifices, sacrifices, and nothing more that sacrifices. I am sorry. For… for making things so hard for you. And for the things I said. I should have died… in that alley, with that poor kid. I am… I am so tired. In the middle of all this struggle for survival all I have managed is to forget how to live."

Clementine grabbed his hand, and squeezed it. What could she say to him? All that came to mind were things he didn't want to heard. That yes, he was right. That he had forgot how to live. Things lost would never return, but all he could see where things that were already out of his reach. A family. A purpose. A normal life. Sarita, Clem herself and AJ had been nothing but an attempt to regain his family, his purpose and Wellington, that illusionary phantasm, was nothing more that the hope of being able to go back to see the days pass tediously but peacefully, without great complications that still burned inside his heart even though he had been in this land ruled by the dead as long as the rest.

Because of that she thought he had forgot how to live. Reality would be what it was, no matter how much you raged and howled. If you were not capable of accepting the world you lived in, you couldn't go very far.

Though of course, she couldn't say that also because she didn't have any right to do it. Trying to recover something that was already lost would only lead to breaking under the strain. She knew that well. And still she had held on to Kenny in an attempt to recover Lee. To recover those moments that she couldn't reach anymore. It was a simple story. He had used her, and she had used him.

"Leave me." Kenny said. "Take care of AJ, please. Be careful. And live… live a good life. I am sorry that I was not able to protect you, and I am sorry that I am leaving you like this. But… maybe this is for the best. Just… just one more thing. I am gland to have meet you, Clementine."

Clementine raised the gun, and pressed it against his forehead. Kenny was breathing with difficulty, and he looked like he was: an empty shell. It was because the bite was already wreaking havoc in him or was it because he had finally released the things he had keep locked away in his heart since the dead of Katjaa and Duck?

"Close your eyes. It will be over before you know it." despite her calm tone, her hand was shaking.

Kenny closed his eye.

In the next instant, Clementine pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot sounded unbearably loud to her, but it vanished in an instant. She stood up. Of course, the shoot had woke AJ up. She calmed him down distractedly, looking at Kenny's corpse. There, slumped with his brains blow out. The world started to sway. Again. It seemed like she hadn't moved from that jewellery store, even though it had been more that two years since that.

She turned her back on that corpse, and keep going forward.

Why did she fight, and why did she keep on running? Lee died because of her. Died because she had been stupid, had trusted a stranger and had sealed the fate of the man who had protected her from the very beginning. He had died because of her mistake, because she had been unable to accept reality. He had died for her sake. So to not make her sacrifice be for nothing, she had decided to keep going forward and not give up even if she couldn't see an end. That she didn't feel she had the right to throw away her life because many people had struggled to survive and had died also had to do with it… maybe.

And now she was there. Still walking despite the cold, despite the hunger, despite that she didn't even know if anything was wanting for her at the end of the path… or if she could even reach there. It was simply because she was out of options. Behind there was nothing but dead, and forward was, maybe, life. Maybe.

She walked, and keep on walking until her legs couldn't support her weight. She fell to her knees on the snow, panting like an animal. She was so cold that she barely could felt her own body. She understood, even though she didn't want to understand… that everything had come to an end, and there was nothing she could do anymore.

These two years had been nothing but a cruel joke. If she hadn't gone with that stranger, things wouldn't have ended this way. The group had shattered because of what she had done. And everything that had took her to this place had also been born out of that naive decision. Many people had paid the price for his decision, and now was her turn.

She looked down… and realized AJ was already dead. He was not breathing. He was not breathing even a little. She only felt a stab of pain and guilty. After all, it was to be expected. A baby of not even a week couldn't survive for a long time in conditions like these. She didn't knew if the infection would affect him too. Could be that it would, and that it wouldn't. She didn't even know the source of the infection nor how it worked, so it could be either of two things.

She put him on the ground, and shoot him on the forehead. She looked away from what remained. She felt like she was floating, like she was about to pass out.

She heard… the sound of Walkers approaching. From left to right. The sound of the gunshot had attracted their attention. They were nearly twenty. Her gun only had four bullets, and she only six more bullets. Running away from the eighteen Walkers with this tired body and bruised body was not even an option. But it didn't matter.

She raised the gun. No towards the Walkers, but towards herself. If she was going to die, she preferred to die by her own hands.

 _You're strong, Clementine. You can do anything._

She doubted. That doubt lasted only an instant. She put the gun against her forehead, took a deep breath and released it. It would be over before she knew it. A miracle was something too big for humans. But what could be called if not a miracle that Lee, slowly dying, resisting the infection, managed to reach her and save her?

 _You can do anything._

Fuck it. She was not going to allow the life he saved to fade out like this. She was going to keep on fighting until the end, even if she would end up crashing against reality.

Clementine raised the gun against her enemies, ready to fight for her life.


End file.
